“Your mother is right, Jamie.If you can’t make the next campaign stop, we can work you into one later this month or in early February.Your sister has been doing more than her fair share of appearances during this initial stage.It’s time you helped out as well,” Richard said into the silence that settled over the table.
“No,” Jamie said.
“This attitude of yours is unacceptable.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be the son you want.I wish things could be different, but they aren’t.My answer is not going to change.”
Pulling the napkin off his lap, Jamie set it on the table and pushed himself to his feet.Leah finally pried her eyes away from her tablet, gaze swiftly glancing around the table to take in the lines drawn, once again, within the family.“Well, that lasted longer than I expected.”
“Now is not the time, Leah,” Richard snapped, gaze locked on Jamie.
“It seems my continued presence will simply spoil the mood and the meal for everyone.I’ll take my leave,” Jamie said in a ruthlessly polite voice.“If you’ll excuse me.”
Richard raised an eyebrow, staring him down.For all that he put forth a calm, unruffled appearance to the world, Jamie knew where to find the glimmers of his father’s anger.“Running away won’t make this problem you insist on ignoring disappear.”
“No, it won’t.But neither will my staying fix it.Good night, everyone.”
Jamie turned his back on his family and left their dining nook with measured strides.He kept his expression neutral from long practice.If there was anything his family and the Marine Corps had in common, it was the way they taught you to never show your true feelings to the world at large and to always wear a calm expression.
He’d just managed to exit the restaurant and head through the outside lobby for the central elevator bank when a familiar voice called out to him.
“Jamie, wait!”
Jamie swore softly before turning around to face his sister.Leah hurried out of the restaurant, purse in hand, the buttons of her fashionable trench coat undone.Behind her strode the pair of bodyguards she never went anywhere without, both of whom rocked to a hard halt once they saw she was with him, keeping a polite distance.
Leah frowned at him as she approached, long legs eating the distance between them.She came to a stop in front of him, tucking a stray curl behind her ear.Jamie was surprised to see that she nearly matched his height of six feet two in the five-inch heels she wore.
“Drive me home,” Leah told him.
“I’m really not in the mood for an argument, Leah.”
“Mother and Father think I left to try to talk some sense into you, but we both know that’s not going to happen.I don’t want to stay with them after the mood you put Father in.So you can do me the courtesy of driving me home before you head back to DC.Your bag is back home anyway, isn’t it?You were supposed to stay for a couple of days, but I know that’s not happening.”
“All right,” Jamie conceded, offering her his arm.He looked over her shoulder at her bodyguards, tilting his head in a dismissing manner.The two men slipped back inside the restaurant with silent, affirming nods of their own.
If it were anyone else but him, Jamie knew Leah’s bodyguards would never leave her.But the men and women the Callahans employed for their private security knew Jamie could handle any threat that came at him or his sister.Several of the longtime employed bodyguards knew of his status as a metahuman and had been duly sworn to secrecy when they accompanied his family to his recovery at the MDF.Their nondisclosure agreements had been written by extremely ruthless government attorneys.He was pretty sure a clause about jail time if they so much as thought about him being a metahuman had been squeezed into the document.
Leah slipped her hand around the crook of his elbow and matched her stride to his.The multitude of gold and diamond bracelets and rings she wore sparkled in the light as they headed for the elevators that would take them to the lower levels.Jamie didn’t remember his sister wearing so much jewelry the last time he saw her.
Must be a fashion thing, he thought.Leah was always setting trends in the socialite scene these days.Jamie had done the same amongst his group of peers when he was much younger before leaving for Annapolis at eighteen.Sometimes his childhood and teenage years felt like they belonged to an entirely different person.
“One of these days, you’ll need to stop treating us like a punishment,” Leah said after a minute or two of blissful silence.
Jamie grimaced, feeling a shade guilty.“You’re not a punishment, Leah.”
“Some days, it seems like it, and those are usually the only days you’re around now.”She turned her head to look him in the eye, trusting in him to guide her.“You’re a fucking terrible older brother sometimes, but I love you anyway.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.“But I can’t be their perfect son if it means giving up everything I am.”
“I’d say they’ll come around, but we both know they won’t.Father is going to be terrible company after tonight.I’ll probably leave New York and go somewhere else to escape him for the next week or so.Maybe Paris.An ocean between us sounds nice right about now.”
“You done digging in the knife?”
“Nope,” Leah replied a little more cheerfully.“You’ll owe me so much by the end of this damn campaign.So much, Jamie.”
When the elevator finally came, they and several other patrons took it down to the lower levels where the garage was.Jamie led his sister to his car, automatically scanning the immediate area for any possible threat, a habit he didn’t know if he would ever break.
They didn’t speak again until they were in the safety of his Bentley and the privacy mode had been activated.It was a different model than the one he kept in DC, older but still a dream to drive.
